


A Cat to the Rescue

by jenni4765



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 13:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10572339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni4765/pseuds/jenni4765
Summary: A stray cat warns Arwen of imminent danger.





	

On a beautifully warm, early spring day Arwen sat in her walled garden in the White City of Gondor, enjoying the fragrant scents of new flowers on a fresh breeze. A book, opened but unnoticed, lay on her lap while she listened to the joyful sounds of her laughing children on the lawn. While she watched and listened she dreamt of her plans for taking down the garden wall to open up the surrounding space with its views of the far off hills and forests.

Aragorn had opposed the demolitiion of the wall but Arwen insisted it would please her to be able to enjoy the open spaces more than to be walled in as a defense against their long-gone enemies.

"There is no more danger, darling," she told him with a kiss.

Some moments passed before she became aware of a sound quite different from that of the children playing. It had started as a soft, barely noticeble mewing but escalated gradually into a full-blown howling.

Rising abruptly from her chair, the book falling neglected to the lawn, Arwen began to search the garden for the source of the plaintive mewling. The sounds were definitely coming from near the wall where an enormous tangle of rose bushes and climbing roses fought over the space between two espaliered cherry trees.

Trying to part the thorny rose branches was extremely difficult and Arwen's hands were soon covered in tiny but painful scratches as thanks for her efforts. But she persisted and soon her efforts paid off when she espied a small white cat sitting in front of a crack in the wall through which it peered while continuing to whimper.

"What do you see, little thing?" Arwen asked the cat, trying to reach among the thorns to pick up the soft little creature. The cat wasted no time once it was in her arms in climbing up her torso to sit on top of her shoulder so it might look over top of the wall and resume its howling.

Standing on tiptoe, Arwen put her hands on top of the wall. She was tall, but she had to hoist herself up onto her elbows to look over the top. When she was able to see clearly around the grounds outside the wall she was shocked to find that a large brown bear was slowly and silently approaching. She did not notice that the cat had jumped down and disappeared among the shrubbery. 

She stared at the bear in disbelief. She could see that the poor thing was starving - its shoulder bones stuck up far too sharply from its grizzled back and its sides looked concave from lack of food. Normally it would not have ventured so far from the forest which was a few kilometres away but starvation had likely caused the bear to search for food closer to the city than what was safe. The area around Gondor was severely short of food since the War had ended.

Quickly Arwen jumped down from the wall and ran toward the children who were playing happily, unaware of danger. She knew bears could climb and was afraid it might smell her childrens' scent and come over the wall after them. Swiftly she hustled them into the house, then ran to a nearby guard whom she ordered to summon some soldiers to form a hunting party.

But she told them not to kill the bear under any circumstances.

"Run it back to the forest," she instructed, "but do not use bow and arrow, nor swords against it. It is hungry but we dare not feed the creature too close to home lest it return in the future. Run it into the cranberry bog near the river. I know I can count on you."

The men did exactly as she asked and soon the bear was happily engorging himself upon the fat red berries that grew in a massive bog wedged between the forest and the river several kilometres from the castle.

Arwen smiled ruefully when she thought about her former desire to pull the wall down. Now she wanted nothing but to keep it.

"I must speak to Aragorn about having the crumbling parts shored up. To think of the mistake I might have made in bringing it down!"

Her thoughts flew to the forgotten cat who had potentially saved her and the children from terrible harm.

"Here, kitty," she called, searching the garden for the tiny creature. She finally spotted it sniffing at the book she had dropped onto the grass. She bent and gently picked up the cat, holding it in her arms, cuddling it while she walked back to the house.

"Where did you come from at such a time of need?" She put her face against its soft white fur, whispering in one of its pink ears. The cat purred happily.

Sunset soon found the cat, whom the children desired to keep as their new pet with Arwen's blessings, sitting comfortably by the solarium's huge window, looking out at the robins singing their evening song in the garden's fruit trees. Beside it were the remains of a dish of whitefish, fresh from the lake that day, and a saucer of milk.

"What should we call him?" Eldarion looked questioningly at his sister.

"Bear Chaser!" She shouted enthusiastically, for Arwen had told them all about the bear from whom the cat had saved them.

"I don't know," Eldarion mused. "He is pure white like the Tree and our city. It's a good omen and I feel he is special enough to have a special name. I'd like to call him Nimloth."

So Nimloth became the cat's name, although the children eventually shortened it to "Nim".


End file.
